“Enough about apples!” said Enrique, waving his hand. “It’s a message from Séverin.”
Zofia gently set the halved explosives into their box and stood.
“Harbor number seven… the Phoenix’s fire must hold through midnight,” read Hypnos aloud. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Harbor number seven must be where they keep the Fallen House’s gondolas. Séverin needed a plan for us to get rid of Ruslan, so this must be it.” Enrique glanced at Zofia and smiled. “The reference to Phoenix’s fire is an obvious nod to her gift.”
“Gift?” said Hypnos, peering at Zofia. “I wasn’t aware of any gifts other than the ability to deliver morbid statements with an exceptionally flat affect. Oh, and wonderful hair.”
He was grinning, so Zofia knew this was a joke and smiled back.
A small smile touched Enrique’s lips and his gaze flew to hers. It was the way he had once looked at Séverin at the successful end of an acquisition. It was… pride, Zofia realized.
Enrique was proud of her.
The thought made her face feel strangely warm.
“Ruslan might be a demon, but blowing up his gondola seems… grisly,” said Hypnos.
Enrique scowled, touching his ear. “If the tables were turned, I doubt he would feel the same hesitation.”
Zofia agreed with Enrique.
“What about the rest of the instructions?” asked Hypnos, before reciting: “Fire must hold through midnight. What does that mean?”
“He used that code in the past,” said Zofia. Hypnos’s eyebrows scrunched together, which meant he did not know what she meant, so Zofia explained. “Séverin used it as code for an explosion that must not be detonated until an appointed time.”
Enrique sighed, tugging at his hair. “So we need to get close enough to the Fallen House gondola to put an explosive on it, and then figure out a way to detonate it from a distance?”
“What can explode something at a distance?” asked Hypnos, frowning.
Zofia glanced at her worktable and the bonded explosive pair.
“A broken heart,” said Zofia.
AN HOUR LATER,Zofia, Enrique, and Hypnos watched the gondolas cross the Grand Canal from beneath the shadows of an archway on the Rialto Bridge. Zofia had not left the safe house since they had arrived, and it struck her suddenly that she was in Venice. She was so far away from Paris and Poland, so far from all the things that had always been so familiar, and yet even here, the sun rose and the sky looked blue. When they were children, Hela said the dawn was secretly a broken egg, its yolk dribbling slowly across the sky. Hela said that if they were only tall enough, they might scoop up the sticky sunshine in their palms, slurp it down, and turn into angels.
It did not sound particularly appealing to Zofia.
She did not like the smell of raw eggs. And she did not like the sliminess of egg yolks. What she did like was her sister’s voice whispering stories to her in the dark. And it was this thought that warmed Zofia despite the February air that turned her every exhale into lace.
Beside her, Enrique lowered his binoculars. “We have a problem.”
“Just the one?” asked Hypnos.
Enrique glared at him. “See that?” He pointed to the wooden spikes that the gondolas were tethered to. “They have Mnemo bugs on them. If we try to access the gondola from the street, they’ll know and find us.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m here,” said Hypnos.
“Somehow I don’t imagine the Fallen House realizing that you’re alive and here is good for anything,” said Enrique. “Besides, Laila will be furious when she finds out you left the safe house.”
Laila had left soon after Enrique to explore the grounds around House Janus. She was certain she would find something that would give them a hint about where to find the map to Poveglia’s temple.
“I am taking every precaution,” said Hypnos. “I’m even in this hideous disguise.”
Zofia did not think he was in disguise; he was merely wearing ordinary clothes for the first time. That said, his Babel ring, a crescent moon that stretched across three knuckles, was hidden beneath a pair of thick gloves.
“If we can’t get to the gondola through the street, then we’ll go through the water,” said Hypnos.
